First, I will highlight the stage events. Kaname’s talk show opened the day, which I wasn’t present. (Overslept, The awesome that is Kalafina!) Up next was the Japanese Media Arts Festival screening. They showed a bunch of animated creative shorts, a Madoka Magica montage and two movie trailers. Notably “A Letter to Momo” and “Legend of the Millennium Dragon”. Details on the Japanese Media Arts Festival can be viewed here.

Production I.G talkshow with CEO Mitsuhisa Ishikawa

The meat of the stage event is here: Ishikawa, interviewed by Danny Choo. (This will be long, bear with me)

The origins of Production I.G, which was actually intended on attracting a female fan base because during inception of the studio, the anime fan base was largely lacking femininity.

Didn’t turn out too well because most of their works ended up garnering a large male audience, the situation is slightly better now all thanks to Guilty Crown. Queue a montage of all of Ouma Shu’s greatest moments, dubbed “Guilty Crown – Next Phase”.

Guilty Crown topic: main focus of the show was targeted at female audiences.

Ishikawa said that the plot progression of the series didn’t go according to what the production staff had planned.

Until Episode 17 and onwards where Ishikawa and the staff brought the series back on track and it was the story they had intended to tell in the first place. As Kyokai would say, too late bro.

Lagrange was showcased. He talked about the collaboration with Nissan and how the designers designed the mech from inside out, cockpit first.

Ishikawa mentioned that there will be some very interesting development in Season 2 coming this Autumn. Fosh and Kara, stay tuned.

Production I.G is working on 5 movies this year, which Ishikawa said had been a challenge to them (previously they only tackled about 2 – 3 movies a year).

A Letter to Momo – This movie is entirely hand drawn and has been in production for the past 7 years.

009 RE:Cyborg – This movie was created in 3D tech from the ground up, Ishikawa said animating like that is a first in the Japanese Animation industry.

Library Wars: The Wings of Revolution – It’s a retelling of the Library Wars series, it’s also the first series to bring them a large female audience as desired by Ishikawa.

Blood-C: The Last Dark – Nothing was said about this movie, instead he went into the origins of the BLOOD franchise and how Quentin Tarantino himself contacted them and was very inspired by BLOOD: The Last Vampire.

Ishikawa closed off with a speech on always pursuing your dreams and never give up.

Artist appearances:

Namely the homebrew idol group Sea*A, KOTOKO and FLOW. The Japanese artists shared their experiences here in Malaysia, KOTOKO went on a shopping spree and FLOW went on an eating spree. All of the artists commented on how the heat here is incredible, some said it was as bad as summer (笑).

Last stage event was the Regional Cosplay Competition, I did not stay for it but here are the highlights:

Tadakatsu Honda cosplayer won first place in the solo category, and Kaname nearly kissed him mouth-to-mouth. Fan girls went mad of course…

For the group category, it was taken by a team that cosplayed the Black Butler series. I was told that the performance was superb and they stayed in-character throughout the whole session. Even when interviewed by guest judges.

That is the end of the stage events. There were a few more interesting happenings in the festival floor, namely celebs like Jimmy Choo, Danny Choo, Good Smile Company boss Aki Takanori and Max Factory boss Max Watanabe all chilled at their respective booths. Giving out autographs and taking pictures with attendees and celebrity cosplayer group SPCats appeared in the Canon booth for photo-shoots. Now for some cosplay picture dump!

For more cosplay and coverage pics, you can check my G+ albums: part 1 and part 2.

Let’s GO LIVE

Bring the house down!

After spending the rest of the afternoon stalking, it is time for the concert. Like last year, the queue had already formed before the stage event even finished! Here are the highlights of the concert.

RAE – A local band performing several covers of Japanese songs as a warm-up, it was really good too. I applaud the move of having local artist appear like this, really gives them the needed exposure in this industry.

Sea*A – They performed their new song “Arashi no Yoru ni” as well as their debut song “Dream Shooter” in English. I don’t remember them staying long, but they announced that they are open for auditions within this SEA region.

KOTOKO – Oh boy, incoming nostalgia wave. KOTOKO’s performance was superb, bringing up the tension with “Face of Fact”. The crowd went wild after she mentioned Onegai Teacher. Never in my life had I expected to listen to “Shooting Star” live. If Kalafina’s concert hadn’t killed my voice box, screaming “WHOA” during “Light My Fire” pretty much burned it. Finally closing her performance with “Re-sublimity”, I am personally very happy for this choice as all her old songs are the more amazing ones.

She later posted her setlist on twitter, and said that she really enjoyed performing for the crowd and that she’ll be back again. She was wowed by the response to “Light My Fire”.

FLOW – Ending it with a bang is of course, my favourite live band of all time. Saying that they brought the house down would be an understatement; it was too amazing so I didn’t remember the setlist at all. They pretty much did all their famous anisongs from Naruto and Code Geass along with songs from their singles/albums. Member introduction is back and lead guitarist Take nailed it again this year, with his LED sunglasses and got the entire hall to follow along with his antics. They even gave the crowd an encore of 2 songs and autograph sessions to people who didn’t win the autograph balloting. It was fan-service galore!

They also talked about their journey in food hunting around Kuala Lumpur; apparently they’re not afraid of our spicy food. They enjoyed performing for the awesome crowd and promised to be back. (YES!)

In the end, I would say it’s a pretty successful first attempt in a branch event for the AFA committee. Although compared to the main event in Singapore, it surely is lacking in booths and varieties. The main entrance and event site is separated by a river so moving to and fro is very cumbersome. However, the stage is enormous! Probably twice as large as the one in Singapore, and it made the concert feel really epic and amazing. The artists’ loved it, the organizers loved it and we loved it, so I’m pretty sure there will be another one coming in the future. Credits to my buddies KuroKelvin, nobukun234 and s3dna for pictures and extra information. For now, this is TKtakeru, signing off.

About the Guest Writer: TKTakeru

I’m a Type-Moon and KEY works fan, known as an avid procrastinator and a self-proclaimed audiophile. Currently learning Japanese and has a love for horror mystery anime.

Thanks for the nice write-up and photos there TKTakeru, keep on writing!

Day Two wasn’t as eventful for me as Day One, but it had its moments. Ishikawa’s talk was quite interesting, but I wish he’d elaborate more on his past projects and experiences.

The Media Arts Festival screening was fascinating, heartbreaking and confusing at the same time. I loved the fact that they didn’t spell out what they were trying to say and forced you to think. However, their very abstract nature made me yawn a couple of times, I did tear up a little during “Rain Town” though. Also was kinda sad to see people leaving without watching everything. Madoka was just the icing on the (complex) cake, people!

Thank you for reading! Yeah I was disappointed at the lack of Ghost in the Shell since the AFA promo spammed the hell out of that series…

I came into the hall near the end of the Media Arts Festival so I missed a lot of good stuff. The sad thing is most people probably entered just because Madoka was featured as I saw a lot of people leaving after Madoka’s montage showed.

FLOW was fan-service galore, even made me regret not getting VIP tickets…

Nice coverage on Day Two. Cosplayers (BRS and C³ being the best among them), Anime merchandise and concerts for the win!!

It’s too bad nothing was said about Blood-C: The Last Dark. I would’ve loved to hear the origins of the BLOOD franchise especially since I’ve seen the Blood-C series and have Blood: The Last Vampire on DVD.

I’m already psyched for the second half of Rinne no Lagrange but 5 movies are being worked on? That’s sweet information to my ears.

The part about Guilty Crown being aimed particularly at the female audience completely went over my head. And I didn’t realize they were that hung on Ouma Shu. Despite the trainwreck story, I liked it. The girls have Shu but the guys have Inori.

Wow, Guilty Crown was on track from 17 on? Never could have figured that out.
Thanks for all of the coverage of this. I’m so jealous you got to see FLOW live. It’s also helping me get over some IRL stuff that’s tough for me to handle, so it’s a really good distraction to look at all those cosplay photos.

By the way, how do you all approach cosplayer’s when you wish to take a photo? and also, what type of camera’s do you use? mobile? normal camera’s or the more professional? xD I’m always shy when it comes to taking pictures of others so I usually get my friends to take them for me ><

You can simply approach them and ask for some pictures. Just say “May I take a picture?” Any camera will do, even mobile phones and tablets. Although I use a digital camera and T.K uses a DSLR. I started off a bit shy to ask for pictures as well, but eventually got used to it.

The Ishikawa Interview was very informative. Thanks for covering it with details because this was the THING I was waiting for after Kalafina live.

Production I.G was formed to attract female audience and Guilty Crown was it’s peak in doing so? WTF man. Not GC but Kimi ni Todoke or even Sengoku Basara can be put in this category. This really disappointed me. Was all that boob jiggle added for girls? Are you kidding me?

Welp, concerts looked amazing as Day 1 and awesome cosplay pics. I want to steal that Shiki cosplayer’s EVERYTHING! Did you get her address?! xD

I was surprised to when Ishikawa said his purpose was to gain a larger female audience despite all their past work being very mature. Probably that’s why Production IGs work as been lacking lately.

And no, I didn’t get her address sadly, or I’d really be mistaken as a stalker then. Glad I found her though, was looking for a Ryougi Shiki cosplayer since last year’s AFA and she was the only one. XD